If you increased your red meat consumption by a half-serving per day over a four-year period, you may have increased your chances of developing T2D by 48%. This sobering study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The unequivocal injustice is that reducing red meat consumption by the same amount didn’t cut the risk of diabetes by half. However it did reduce the risk by 14% over a longer time period. There’s a trade-off to make you smile.

The study analyzed over 150,000 people over a 20 year timeframe.. The participants in this study were mostly doctors and nurses. Considering the association between red meat consumption frequency, and the unmistakable statistic of increased T2D risk, this is information worth considering when planning your weekly meals.

There is one more unsolicited detail in the findings of this study. A doctor affiliated with both Duke University and GlaxoSmithKline wrote a commentary about the study. “It is not the type of protein (or meat) that is the problem; it is the type of fat,”.

He feels that this study is mischaracterizing red meat as high fat, which is what has been shown to increase risk of T2D. Choose lean cuts of red meat such as sirloin tips or round steak over high-fat cuts like rib-eye. Let them eat less fatty red meat and reduce the risk of T2D in a Paleo diet.